Even in the dim light, we were a sorry sight, wet with seawater, our legs and boots coated with filth. Spark was pale with disgust and as Lant shook filth from his boots, I saw his shoulders heave as he fought to contain his stomach. Per’s boots squelched when he walked. He pulled them off, emptied them and grimaced as he pulled them back on. I paused to empty mine, as did Lant, and shook as much filth from my legs as I could. Spark had only shoes, as befit her maidenly disguise. She kicked them off and shook them clear of filth and discarded them. Together, we ventured on.
I led them past the dripping table and the slumped guard, moving quietly into the dimness. I could make out the bars, and then the cells. I peered into the first, and saw only an overturned pot, and a bare mattress. The second was the same. In the third, a terrible sight dizzied me. I saw my worst fear: the Fool, beaten and bloody, lay face down and motionless on a bare pallet on the floor. One hand reached toward us, palm up and empty. I studied him, waiting for the slight rise of breath in his body.
There was none.
THIRTY-THREE
* * *
Candles
Then comes a crowned blue buck. He awakens stone. If he awakens stone, then a wolf emerges. A gold man holds the wolf on a chain that goes to his heart. If the gold man brings the wolf, then the woman who reigns in the ice falls. If she falls, a true prophet dies with her, but a black dragon rises from the ice. This I have dreamed, but only twice.
I have dreamed seven times that a blue buck falls, red blood spouting. No stone awakens and the woman becomes queen of the ice. The true prophet turns into a puppet fallen on dead leaves in a deep forest. Moss covers him over and he is forgotten.
Sycorn, White of the Porgendine line, Record 472
After the bird left, I sat on my mattress feeling dizzy and sick. For a time, I had to lie down. I closed my eyes. I don’t think I slept. How could I have slept? But when next I came back to myself, the other prisoners were softly calling questions to one another.
‘Was that Beloved? I thought he was dead.’
‘How badly was Capra hurt?’
‘What did Prilkop do? Will they punish him?’
And later, ‘Is no one bringing us food tonight?’
‘Will no one come to light the lamp?’
‘Guard? Guard? What of our food?’
All their questions went unanswered.
The evening light that came through the blocks at the back of my cell faded and died. I peered out through the holes. Above the castle walls, I could see a small slice of night sky. The cooler air of night flowed in with the darkness. I sat on my mattress and waited. I tried to find the feather I had caught, but it was gone. And crows were black. Why had I dreamed a red feather and a silver beak? And a red dragon. It made no sense.
For a time, I puzzled about the crow. It seemed so random. She came, she spoke of Per, she said he couldn’t come. Then she flew away.
A red dragon was coming.
Had I dreamed it?
Wolf Father? Why did you make me say ‘a way out is a way in’?
To tell them there is a way to reach us. He seemed smaller in my thoughts.
Tell who? Per?
No. Your father. If the Fool is near, your father cannot be far away. I reach for him, but your walls are strong.
My father? Are you sure? I can lower my walls.
No! Do not!
I had begun to tremble. Was it possible? After all these months, after he had pushed me away? He has come to find me? Are you certain? Are you sure my father is near?
His reply was faint. No.
His presence faded like my hopes.
I carefully pondered what I knew.
I knew Beloved had come. That had been real. If he had come to rescue me, he’d made a poor task of it. He had only made things worse. They would whip him to death, and Prilkop, too. And we’d had no food because he had killed the guard who tended us, and Fellowdy had not thought to assign a new one. I wondered if Capra had died. I wondered if Coultrie and Vindeliar would convince Fellowdy that I had to be killed. I thought that Capra might have stood against them to keep me alive. But if she was gone, or badly hurt, they might come and get me. And kill me.
Was Prilkop already dead? They would kill him slowly, he’d said. Would they kill me slowly? I considered that very likely and the thought frightened me. I stood up, my heart pounding, my hand clasped over my mouth. Then I forced myself to sit back down. Not yet. It didn’t feel right yet.
I tried to put my thoughts in order. The crow had been real, because Wolf Father made me talk to him.
If Wolf Father was real.
I pushed all of that away. What did I know with absolute certainty? Coultrie and Vindeliar wanted to kill me. If they could convince Fellowdy, they’d do it.
That left only my path. The path that Prilkop had told me might not be a good one.
It was the only one I had. My only certainty. I could not depend on a talking crow or the dangled hope that my father might be near by. Me. I was what I could depend on. I was my only resource, and the path I had glimpsed was suddenly my true Path.
I felt regret for how my life had gone. I knew it was all over now. I would never sit at the kitchen table in Withywoods and watch flour and water become bread. Never steal scrolls from my father again, never argue with him. I would never sit in my little hidey-hole with a cat that didn’t belong to me. That part of my life had been very short. If I’d known how good it truly was, I would have enjoyed it more. But Prilkop was wrong. There had been no choice for me. Dwalia had taken all choices from me when she stole me and brought me here. There was still no choice.
It was silly, but I longed to tell him why he was wrong. To talk with him again. But I suspected he was already dead. I still whispered the words aloud. ‘You were wrong, Prilkop. The problem is not that we forget the past. It is that we recall it too well. Children recall wrongs that enemies did to their grandfathers, and blame the granddaughters of the old enemies. Children are not born with memories of who insulted their mother or slew their grandfather or stole their land. Those hates are bequeathed to them, taught them, breathed into them. If adults didn’t tell children of their hereditary hates, perhaps we would do better. Perhaps the Six Duchies would not hate Chalced. Would the Red Ships have come to the Six Duchies if the OutIslanders did not recall what we had done to their grandparents?’
I listened to the silence that followed my question.
Now it was past the turn of the night and venturing toward morning. Now it was time for my plan to be real. Time for me to set the world on my better Path.
I found the little tear in my mattress seam and winkled out my knife and the tethered four keys. I separated the keys. It was awkward to reach through the bars to insert each one in the proper hole and then turn it in the correct order. I was glad I only had to use two of them. It was still a slow process to find which two. Very carefully and quietly, I worked each key in the lock and then slid the metal latch. I opened the barred door just enough to put out my head. I saw no one in the open corridor.